“City doesn’t win when its residents lose”

CHILLIWACK – Don’t let the City of Chilliwack’s comments after the recent court ruling fool you! The hazardous waste facility by Aevitas Inc. is not just about allowing the City to “recycle light bulbs” as they suggest. This is not a City project! In reality this is a private proposal by Aevitas to recycle the hazardous waste of the entire province of BC.

In fact, if the facility gets built it will reuse transformer oils containing PCBs, mercury lamps and transformers. It will also be a transfer station for gasses and cylinders, flammable solids and liquids, oxidizing substances and organic peroxides, corrosives and other miscellaneous organisms.

The Coalition, made up of local Chilliwack residents, First Nations, the outdoor recreation community and the environmental community, together represent over 120,000 people across the province and the country. Placing a hazardous waste facility adjacent to the Fraser River is tempting fate and is irresponsible.

Mark Angelo, found of BC Rivers Day and World Rivers Day is disappointed in the ruling. “This is one of the most productive stretches of river anywhere on earth,” he stated at a recent Global TV interview. “Because the City made no reference to the fact that hazardous materials would be handled and processed, many who live in the community didn’t get involved in the process because they thought the company was just building a recycling facility.”

"Despite the recent court ruling supporting Chilliwack's rezoning actions, the recreational fishing community remains adamantly opposed to the proposal to establish a hazardous waste disposal facility on the banks of the Fraser River,” said President of the BC Drift Fishers Association, Rod Clapton. “At risk is not only the health of the world's #1 salmon river, but also the tremendous economic value of the sport fishery, which is estimated to be in excess of $100 million annually to local community."

“We are not opposed to these facilities but in this instance we are opposed to the location,” said Ernie Crey, member of the Sto:lo Tribal Council and the only citizen to register a statement at the public hearings in December 2013.

Nevertheless, people downstream of the proposed site remain concerned of the impacts if an accident should occur. “A City doesn’t win when its residents lose,” says Chilliwack resident Glen Thompson.

The Coalition will continue to work to stop the facility from being built on the banks of the Fraser River while encouraging the company and the City to find an alternative location.

I wish you the best of luck I am resident of Shawnigan Lake on Van island and the entire community said no to a facility that dumps all the soil not wanted from Vancouver, Victoria and other municipality development projects throughout island/mainland. Worst of all our own CVRD initiated the idea with input from CRD also. Eventually though CVRD changed its mind and it was too late. The owner won permit from government through MOE.

They built a huge pit with a liner on a mountain at high elevation with a creek that flows right in lake... We are obviously at lower elevation so this will leak in our water supply. This lake is where my family directly pulls its drinking water. The creek is meters from the tailing of the facility. The contract is to dump several 100,000 over 50 years years up here. The liner we have been told will hold all the hydrocarbons and toxins so they claim. Were getting shaft up here because West shore and other developments in Vic wants to expand but none of residents want a facility on their backyard. Many of the soil is highly contaminated. The joke is our aquifer is right next to Greater Victoria's water supply something they have told the MOE over and over in hearings..

Get a very good lawyer, and appeal with MOE as they would have to grant this....We have MOE ruling coming soon, but we dont really expect to win. Christy Clark has said there really not interested in listening..... Hopefully for you guys we get our situation overturned.... It can help with this sort of thing... But its a long long process...

Hope the voters remember come next election...unfortunately they have 3 years to create havoc with more dumb decisions.

Click to expand...

I kind of think that's why we were doomed here we always vote NDP in the valley most of time. But yeah pretty much no one is voting liberal here. In this case they are small community, and even if you take entire Cowichan Valley the government didn't think votes are worth it...

The good thing is if you can first nations on board.. Sounds like that's the case there but beware..we learned the hard way here.

If you want to see a shocking one do some readings on columbia river on hanover site in US.... They cant figure out what to do with nuclear waste...Its been leaking there for years.... And think of how important that river is for salmon.

Aevitas Inc. to build a hazardous-waste plant on the banks of the Fraser River

Rod Clapton, president of B.C. Federation of Drift Fishers
Photo – Rafal Gerszak
MARK HUME | theglobeandmail.com
When the City of Chilliwack published a notice of a public hearing into a rezoning proposal on Cannor Road, it failed to mention some key things.
Instead of stating the site was going to be used for the treatment of hazardous waste, the city said it was going “to facilitate the construction of a waste recycling and transfer facility.”
For all you could tell by that description, the plant was going to handle garden waste and old bottles – not mercury and toxic sludge.
And the location map failed to show one important element – namely that the Fraser River is just 150 metres away.
Now, those oversights may land the city in court and lead to what a lot of people have been calling for – public hearings at which the public actually gets to have a say.
In the first hearings, only a few people showed up, says Glen Thompson of Friends of the Chilliwack River Valley, because nobody really knew what was at stake. Now, a coalition of groups is hoping a legal challenge will stop the rezoning and give people another chance to be heard.
In a notice of application filed with the Supreme Court of B.C. last week, the opponents challenge the zoning bylaw that cleared the way for Aevitas Inc. to build a hazardous-waste plant on the banks of the Fraser River.
The notice claims the bylaw is illegal because the city “failed to adequately describe the purpose of the proposed bylaw, or … failed to disclose the contents of key documents relating to the proposal sufficiently in advance of the public hearing.”
Or, as Mr. Thompson puts it: “We’re saying they didn’t describe the property properly … It didn’t show the Fraser River. It didn’t show PCPs, it didn’t mention mercury, it didn’t mention the word hazardous … So what would clue you in?”
When those who did get clued in showed up at the public hearing, they asked for a delay in the process so people could become better informed. Council declined.
In a statement on its website, the city explains: “Council was satisfied with the land use decision and passed second and third reading, citing the comprehensive plans submitted, and the safeguards which will be put in place.”
Mr. Thompson, however, thinks council rushed things.
He said if the legal challenge is successful it would force city council to go through the process again: “It would basically knock everything back to the second stage, which would be the public hearing.”
Mr. Thompson said since council approved the rezoning, the hazardous plant has turned into a big issue in Chilliwack, and he’s convinced the majority of people don’t want the project now that they know what it is.
“We hope if it does go back to public hearing a second time that we’ll be able to defeat it,” he said.
A second hearing would not only give members of the public a chance to express their views, but it would allow Byron Day, the President of Aevitas to clear up a question about the company’s safety record.
According to a report in the Chilliwack Progress, when Mr. Day appeared before council, he made this statement: “In 20 years, we’ve never had an incident.”
He couldn’t be reached for comment over the weekend, but he likely wouldn’t make that claim today. An Aevitas plant in Cornwall had a fire last month. It was a minor blaze.
But the one that another company, Custom Environmental Services, had at its facility in Edmonton in 2005 was not.
“A witches’ brew explodes: Series of blasts at toxic-waste handling facility sends black clouds over city,” was how the Edmonton Journal described it at the time.
If a fire like that happened on the banks of the Fraser, all the water and chemical retardants used to suppress the flames would go straight into the river, along with toxic runoff from whatever was in the plant. No wonder the public wants to take a second look at this plan.
Ernie Crey from the Sto:lo Nation spoke with APTN about the facility and the recent court decision. click here for that video
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